WordPress Plugins from A to Z Episode 93

It’s episode #93 and we’ve got some amazing new WordPress plugins that help you safely recover from disaster, access your Instagram photos, track your social shares, Quick Uploads, Pinterest, and a great new teaching plugin. It’s the show that takes it’s coffee at a #000000 value, It’s WordPress Plugins A-Z!

>>>Self Promotion of our businesses here<<<
Do you need WordPress Emergency support you know when you see the ever favorite White Screen of Death. Or just some questions on how to do something please visit WPPro.ca/emergency for some quick tips or request some help.

Marcus is now available for phone consultations at http://marcuscouch.com/call. If you need help with WordPress, Podcasting, SEO or general Internet Marketing help, the new Clarity.fm platform is an easy way to schedule and pay for a consulting phone call.

John’s & Marcus Rant

Today’s recording (November 1st) marks the one year anniversary of Marcus co-hosting the show! Here’s to many more in the future!

Shout Outs:

Thank you to everyone who has continued to give us high ratings and praise on iTunes by providing a review, especially in the last few weeks. We really appreciate the support and are quite ecstatic that there are thousands of you out there that get great benefit from the content that we create. Keep the reviews coming! It helps the show to rank better within iTunes and let’s new WP enthusiasts know about the show with more prominence.

Listener Feedback / Audio Clips

Lyria looking for a sidebar plugin to subscribe to future posts and not use feedburner.

-You may want to check out Newsletter, a plugin that we’ve previously discussed on the show. (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/newsletter/) It allows you to do both single and double opt-in newsletter subscriptions without the need of a third party service. It also handles unsubscribe requests automatically.

Andrew McGivern with some great show feedback and wants to know of a plugin to sync comments from one site to another..

-This is a tough one Andrew, as you would have to share the same SQL user table between two installations, not to mention the fact that you would have duplicate content on two different sites, possibly negating any positive gains that this functionality would give you. You bring up an interesting point in using Facebook, in which you could use Alex King’s new SOCIAL plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social/) to act as a conduit for cross-pollinating your comments between WP and Facebook and Twitter.

Another suggestion is to try the premium plugin “WP-ROBOT” (http://marcuscouch.com/wprobot) as a way to grab both posts and comments and post to another WP installation, though it may not have the ability to continually monitor each post individually and update them one by one. Version 4 of WP Robot was just released with a ton of new features, but Marcus has not yet had the opportunity to review it in full to test it’s full capabilities and limitations.

David from Perth, Australia has a new podcasting project using WordPress and is looking for a solution to facilitate a directory that podcasters can use to submit their own podcast information.

-Marcus suggests using DirectoryPress theme, which you can buy at http://marcuscouch.com/directorypress. (This is an affiliate link that helps to support your hosts)
The theme features both free and paid options for adding entries into the directory, robust child themes, payment gateways and plenty of methods in which to import mass content from CSV or other means. I love using these premiumpress themes not only for their functionality and free lifetime upgrades, but also for the amazing community and support forums that go along with it.

World of WordPress News and other interesting WordPress related posts:

Wordpress 3.5 Beta 2 has been launched. If you are interested in beta testing this version, head on over to WordPress.org and grab a copy. WordPress 3.5 is scheduled for official release on December 5th, 2012.

New improvements in the beta that are being implemented for future release versions include:

New workflow for working with image galleries, including drag-and-drop reordering and quick caption editing.

New user interface for setting static front pages for the Reading Settings screen.

New image editing API allowing you to edit images in the WP dashboard.

Plugin Favorites: You can browse and install plugins you’ve marked as favorites on WordPress.org, directly from your dashboard. (Sounds like someone at WP has been listening to our show!)

**WordPress Plugins Reviewed by John**

QuickUpload 1.0

The lowdown:Was excited when I first saw it but less as I actually installed and activated it. They have the right idea but wrong approach I think. This should add a box to the post/page edit area not o the Dashboard for your admin. So let me ask a quick question how many people actually spend much time on the dashboard page and do any work there aside from look at stats?
Rating 2 Dragons

My Pinterest Badge 1.0.1

The Lowdown:So by now you know what pinterest is right? Well I have recently begun to actually use it and start to apply it as clients have started asking for it. This one caught my eye for those of you who use it and what to share what you do on pnterest in your sidebar. My not yet there but some of you may be. You install it activate it and then add your username and choose image size and that's really about it but if you like pinterest this is for you.

Rating 3 Dragons

WP Teacher 1.0.1

The Lowdown on this one:This one is so very new and something I have been looking for since I do site for one of my local schools just the quick use I have to say it is impressive here is the creators info on it..
WP Teacher is a plugin that allows teachers to use WordPress to their advantage by integrating course content into their personal website to enhance student learning.
WP Teacher functions like typical blog postings, but provides additional features to maximize student learning. All the features work together. The plugin is maximized for customization which makes it perfect for multi-site wordpress installation.
Features:

2 Post Types

Assignments

Document Uploading

Due Date for assignments

Events

All Day

Date Range

Time selection

2 Widgets

Assignments List

Display X ammount of posts

Choose a course category to display

Choose a assignment type to display

Events List

Display X ammount of posts

Choose a course category to display (That applies to a specific course)

Choose a event type to display

3 Taxonomies (Post Categories)

Course

Event Type

Assignment Type

Calendar

Plugin Options

Calendar view settings

Select Specific courses/events to display on calendar

Color choices for the courses taxonomy

As for me with the short amount of time I have used it so far I have to rate it as 4 Dragons but that may go up.

**WordPress Plugins Reviewed by Marcus**

WP – Social Stats

Wpsocialstats is a social analytics tool that tracks the performance of your site at Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Stumbleupon.

Requires: 2.6 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Last Updated: 2012-10-3
Downloads: 561
WP Social Stats is a social analytics plugin that tracks the performance of your blog or website posts on social networks. People love to share great content with their friends on social networks, but do you know which network is the most popular for your blog/website or what type of blog posts are shared the most? WPSocialstats helps you answer these questions so you focus on creating great content, the key to success for any blog or website.

With WP Social Stats you can:

Track number of times a post is shared on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ , Pinterest, LinkedIn and Stumbleupon

Data is presented in a table view, easy to read and analyze

Sort results per category or tag and see which type of posts are performing the best

Sort results per month

Track performance of your blog or website pages as well

Marcus’ Take: While there are numerous ways to add and propagate social likes and tweets, there is often a large gap in how to associate that data within WordPress itself from a statistical standpoint. This plugin bridges the gap, allowing you to see sharing statistics for your posts directly in the WordPress dashboard. I found this to be a great improvement in determining what posts “go viral” and also identifying what users are sharing your post content online.

Why is this useful?

Whenever something's wrong with a WordPress site, the first rule of thumb is to disable plugins and possibly revert to the default theme. Depending on the nature of the error, that is not always an option. The back end (dashboard) may also be down, you may not have FTP access to manually disable plugins or themes and so on.

Enter Safe Mode. Safe Mode will completely disable all plugins and the active theme temporarily for a single page view – ultimately enabling you to log in and remove the offending plugin. (This is not guaranteed to work in all scenarios, please read the disclaimer)

How does it work?

If your site crashes due to an upsetting plugin or theme, all you have to do is add a querystring parameter to the URL. That will temporarily disable all plugins for that single page view, as well as temporarily activate a default theme if such is installed.
Let's say you're the owner of http://www.example.com. To enable safe mode for one particular page, you add this to the URL: “?safe_mode=1”.
Bear in mind that you have to do this for every view. The querystring parameter isn't carried on automatically. So, for instance:

When you go to plugin management, all plugins will seem to be deactivated (due to the way Safe Mode works), but you'll still be able to explicitly deactivate each plugin. Just use the “Deactivate (safe mode)” option.

What is default themes?

By default theme, I'm referring to either Twenty Twelve, Twenty Eleven or Twenty Ten.
The plugin checks if any of these themes are installed (in that order), and if so, activates the first theme it encounters. Thus I highly recommend that you keep one of those themes installed at all times. If you don't, safe mode will keep your current active theme, and that theme may just be the offender – leaving safe mode useless. Keep this in mind.

Marcus’ Take: There are many times in which a plugin can interact negatively. These can include WordPress core version updates, plugin updates, theme updates or any other scenario in which the code changes over time. When this happens, there is often a conflict which can literally stop a site in it’s tracks. This plugin helps to keep your site in “safe mode” with a simple trailing string on your URL, which lets you get to the root of the problem without having your site completely dead. It’s an easy way to get the site back up again if problems ever come up that seem to be out of your control.

Where can I use it?
Easygram can be used with any WordPress install. As long as you have a site and as long as you have WordPress then Easygram will work for you.
Auto-import all your Instagram photos
With the above setup done, you can simply start creating your galleries using Easygram's auto-import feature. Click the Instagram tab and you'll be able to see your Instagram photos which you've taken.
Select Multiple Photos at a Time
Select multiple photos and include as many as you like in your galleries.

Marcus’ Take: This is an outstanding bridge built to let you access your mobile photos directly in your WordPress Media Gallery. It adds an “Instagram” section of your Media Gallery, allowing you to use the images in your post with just a few clicks.

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